Didn't expect so much discussion, but I've seen good points here from all sides. Just to clear up the most important one first (yet again): when I chose this name on a moment's impulse, I didn't realise it would conceal my gender as well as my identity. (My name is Peter Kirker, for those who didn't know.) But don't worry Sophocleese, you're in good company! For the record, Fionn (Fin McCool in plain English) is a giant in Irish legend.

The other point to say up front is that Amnesty is not challenging Sexton's guilt. I believe once in a while even American states get lucky and kill the right guy. But the mistakes are my biggest argument with the death penalty. Carlin says just don't make them, but all of history says we'll never be perfect. In Britain we had a senior forensic scientist straightforwardly lying in case after case. How do you legislate for that, except retrospectively?

And no, I don't think Sexton should be set free, any more than Amergin would want him executed for being a black who's had a tough life. But he has had a tough life, and it makes sense to look at that side of things. OK, Harpgirl (whose capacity for premeditated cruelty and torment must be driven by emotions like hatred, of which only humans seem capable) makes the point that plenty of abused people come through without raping or killing anyone. But right across the developed world the stats show that those who have been abused are the most likely to abuse others.

I'm glad to See Michael K back signing his posts, here and elsewhere, but anyone who wants the state, with all its intellectual rigour and measured pomp, to aspire to the same values as one wretched individual like Sexton, is not aiming very high. Unfair maybe, Michael K, but that post did make me wonder what your own childhood was like.

I take some of Troll's points, but when the USA jails a massively higher proportion of its population than any nation on earth (and a massively higher proportion of blacks than whites) it's just a bit disingenuous to cite the USSR as the alternative model. There are 20 or 30 countries offering demonstrably better models (ie lower spend on prisons, yet also less crime) than the USA's. And on Troll's point about vengeance, I just hope that S Africa sticks to the conciliatory line it started out with. Plenty black Africans have good reason for vengeance, but for a state to behave that way is counter-productive. Watch Zimbabwe.

Thanks for the point about black-on-black v black-on-white statistics Carlin. It sounds a fair one, and if I can, I'll be looking into that a bit more.

And thanks for your wise words several times Sorcha - expecially appreciated as I think you said somewhere that your feller is a cop or law officer? One of Sorcha's last points was that anyone coming out from a few years in Spaw's eight-by-eight would be a bit changed from when they went in. Of course so, but equally anyone brutalised by childhood will be changed by that experience. And equally again, as McGrath pointed out, even a murderer can change, and Christopher Craig indeed did. Prof Susan Greenfield, a world-respected scientist doing brain and personality research, has been arguing recently that when, say, Nazi war criminals are belatedly brought to justice, they are completely different personalities from those that did the crimes. Well I can think of plenty of crimes that sickened me, but if the people who did them have changed utterly - in a sense no longer exist - what is the point of pressing on with justice, except as vengeance? Greenfield is arguing that we can all change. And many of us do. I wouldn't run it as a defence right now, I just hope she's right when she says there will be good science to explain all this in the next 20 years. Maybe in my daughter's lifetime it will even be widely accepted.

Just to deal quickly with one of DougR's points (I hope I've addressed most of his others already), yes N Carolina is getting the drains up on its pattern of executions, which naturally I welcome. But it looks like they are quite happy to execute Sexton in the meantime. I think that's wrong, and it seems reasonable to put that point to the state governor. The availability of senior politicians to this sort of approach is one of the truly creditable aspects of the American Way.